


I'm All For Effort

by maristu



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: First Dates, M/M, Magnus has a lot of history, Nervous Alec, POV Magnus Bane, Pool & Billiards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 05:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maristu/pseuds/maristu
Summary: Magnus and Alec's first date, from Magnus's point of view.





	I'm All For Effort

**Author's Note:**

> I like poking around in Magnus's head, because who doesn't? Based on S2E06.

Magnus was nervous.

There was a part of him - the part that felt detached from his humanity, that seemed to float slightly above everything to watch with distanced interest what was going on below, a part of him that sometimes sounded remarkably like Camille - that thought it was _quaint_ that a centuries old warlock would be nervous about a date. But it had been a while since he’d been on a first date, and he was out of practice.

After some deliberation, he decided to take Alec to a bar. Not a downworlder bar, or a shadowhunter bar. A normal, mundane bar. Neutral ground. He dutifully got them both drinks - a Cosmo for him, and a beer for Alec - and once they got through the “you hate it” and “it’s great” part of the conversation, they fell into awkward silence.

Magnus disliked awkward silences. He liked charged silences with intense looks that led to the bed, or the sofa, or whatever surface was available. Sometimes the wall. He was a master of flirting, seduction and innuendo, but Alexander seemed mostly oblivious to his charms. Magnus felt like he was constantly rummaging through his vast and powerful flirting arsenal and coming up lacking. It was infuriating and, if he was being honest, a little exhilarating as well.

Right now his exhilaration was slowly turning into desperation. He looked around the bar, searching for something, _anything_ to keep the conversation going.

And that’s when he saw it. It seemed to shine with a heavenly glow, beckoning to him. He could practically hear a choir of angelic voices in his head. It was so _obvious_. The way to a warrior’s heart was through war - or, more specifically, competition.

“So Alexander, could I interest you in a game of pool?”

***

There were a considerably small amount of things that Magnus deemed worthy of his dedication. Despite his immortality, his free time wasn’t that extensive, and time spent outside of his magical practice and business endeavours was precious. He had in the past dabbled in the arts, but found most of it terribly dull and lonely, and to be honest, quite pointless. He’d tried music, which seemed much more useful (his charanga instructor had been quite fetching), but had discovered he was sadly lacking in talent. There was dancing, of course, and he’d been proficient in every dance style of every era he’d been alive. Dancing had the added bonus of working as foreplay. Magnus was all about foreplay.

And then there was pool. Most people viewed pool as a betting game, and Magnus sighed at their lack of vision. Everything about it, from the low lighting and smoky ambiance of pool halls to the intensity of players’ concentration to the sounds of the balls rolling, hitting and pocketing, was charged like an electric current. Magnus had fond memories of his pool table at Mr. Dry’s (his brief but colourful stint as a speakeasy owner during the prohibition, before everything had gone to hell in a basket), of late nights and early mornings and alcohol induced encounters. He had once woken up naked in his establishment, tied to the four corners of his pool table, with a dark haired and very naked young man draped around him. Regrettably he had no idea how he had landed himself in that situation, but he expected he’d had a fine time, and nothing important seemed to be missing (other than his clothes, and maybe some dignity).

They headed to the pool table and Magnus slowly ran his hand along the edge, feeling the smooth varnished wood under his fingers. There was really no wrong turn here. If Alec knew how to play, things would flow smoothly. If he didn’t… Well, Magnus would have the delectable task of teaching him.

He was slightly disappointed when he saw Alec go to the cue rack and carefully pick his cue, then head to the table with the racking triangle. Ah well, there would be no teaching needed, apparently.

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Magnus mentioned with an impressed tone, and saw Alec grin at the compliment. He bowed from the table, indicating that Alec was free to rack the balls and break. Which meant that Magnus was free to watch.

And it was quite the show. He loved the way Alec looked walking around the table, his brow furrowed, calculating angles and possibilities, force and trajectory. The way Alec bent over the table, the way the cue slid seductively between his curved fingers, running along his waist and hips as he pulled it back, the force of the forward thrust, Alec’s eyes intent and focused. The way his shirt slid up slightly with the movement, exposing just an inch of his torso.

Magnus wondered where he could fit a pool table in his loft.

“... it’s all about the aim, Magnus”, Alec said cheerfully, and Magnus was awoken from his reverie. Deciding it was time to step in, he overtly pouted and complained, and was rewarded with Alec’s obviously calculated mistake. “You can’t win them all,” and Magnus had a hard time hiding his grin. So predictably nice. He’d even left the table open for him.

Magnus managed to pocket three of his own balls - in the correct order, of course - before Alec turned back to the table, with a surprised and slightly betrayed look.

“Wait, did you do your… thing?” he asked, waving his hand randomly over the table. Magnus locked eyes with the boy.

“Haven’t you heard the saying? If you can’t find the one being hustled in the pool hall, it’s probably you,” he said, and without breaking eye contact, expertly pocketed the next ball. Part of him wondered if he’d gone too far with the taunt, but he held the gaze and almost melted as he saw the fire of the challenge light up behind Alexander’s eyes. Finally, _finally_ , the date was going his way. This was going to be _fun_.

***

His relief was short lived. Looking back, he had no idea why he’d veered the conversation to exes. Well, that was the point of a first date, wasn’t it? To get to know the other person, to learn about their history, their life, their baggage.

Or, in Alec’s case, his staggering lack of baggage. The realization of exactly how inexperienced Alec actually was - in every single area of romance, not just the physical - hit Magnus like a ton of bricks. Suddenly, the past few months made sense. Alec really _was_ oblivious to his charms.

As a general rule, Magnus shied away from virgins. The responsibility of being the first person to touch someone’s naked body, to hear someone’s moans and to feel someone’s release, was generally more than what Magnus was willing to sign up for. There had been plenty of firsts, especially with men (Magnus loved gently seducing them out of their closets), but even men who had never been with another man before usually had _some_ experience with sex. Magnus considered himself merely a tour guide, opening doors to new and exciting pleasures.

With Alexander there were no doors open. Other than that one kiss, that one lovely, honest and innocent kiss on his would-be wedding day, Alec had never been touched with any sort of salacious intent. It struck Magnus then how much courage it had taken the boy to walk down the aisle towards him. He looked sideways at him, and saw him in a completely new light. A slightly scarier, but decidedly more beautiful, light.

His heart softened as he watched Alec hunch over, looking dejected and very much self-conscious. He’d bared heart and soul to Magnus, and although it was a lot to digest, Magnus knew how special his confession had been, and was honored to have been privy to secrets he’d carried for so long.

“I don’t want you to treat me any different,” Alec said, turning to him with pleading but guarded eyes.

“But you _are_ different,” Magnus replied. “And it’s a good thing.”

There it was. _It’s a good thing._ He knew it was true the moment he said it. This thing with Alec, that had started off as harmless flirting, had slowly but surely evolved into something special. And Magnus, for all his bravado, felt helpless to stop his own fall.

***

Of course, he should’ve been expecting the next line of questioning, considering he was the one that had led them down that rabbit hole.

“It’s not a trick question.” Alec said uncomfortably. Magnus begged to differ. The number of exes in Magnus’s past might just be the trickiest question ever. Mainly because he’d never really kept count, at least after the first hundred. He blurted out the number seventeen for some reason (maybe he liked prime numbers?) and started doing some quick calculations in his head. Alec’s relief at such a low number slowly dissolved as he interpreted Magnus’s uncomfortable silence.

“Seventeen hundred?” he asked in a disbelieving voice. Nope, Magnus was pretty sure he’d crossed that mark sometime around his second century, maybe even in his first. There was a heady quality to the first hundred years, when the reality of exactly how much of a burden immortality could be is still unknown. He’d probably crossed the 8.000 mark sometime during his stint in Paris (although he didn’t much like thinking about the French Revolution, he had fond memories of the debauchery of the years leading to it).

Alec kept staring at Magnus and, try as Magnus might to hide the evidence that that number was still too low, somehow the boy knew to raise the number yet again. “Seventeen _thousand?_ ”

He looked horrified. To Magnus’s own horror he realized how close to the actual number Alec was (give or take a few thousand). Magnus had lived - intensely, he might add - through the free love movement of the 60s, and then the sexual revolution of the 70s, and there had been threesomes and foursomes and _orgies_ , for fuck’s sake.

There was a fine distinction between “relationships” and “people Magnus had sex with”, but he was pretty sure Alec wasn’t interested in hearing it. Despite his many sexual escapades, the number of people with whom Magnus had fallen in love was considerably lower than seventeen thousand, and the number of times that love had been requited was closer to the seventeen he had blurted out initially. Magnus tended to fall hard and stay down long after the object of his affection had moved on. His heart had been broken more times than he cared to remember, and the deepest scar, a little over 100 years old, still felt raw in his chest. He thought it best to keep that information to himself. For now.

“Look,” Magnus measured his words carefully, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach that told him that there was no salvaging this. “I am who I am, and you are who are, and all the magic in the world can’t change that, so…” He trailed off and, really, where was he going with this?

“Let’s just try to make the best of it,” Magnus finished lamely, and wondered where the suave, self-assured and fabulous Magnus had run off to. He missed him.

***

The walk home was almost physically painful in its silence. Magnus had decided on walking in the odd chance that they could maybe smooth things out, but Alec had been quiet the entire way, sullen looking and lost in thoughts. As they walked through the door to his loft, Magnus made a beeline to his whisky bottle. Knowing himself as he did, he knew that the night was heading to him falling asleep in a drunken stupor on his very comfortable and stylish sofa. There was nothing wrong in getting a head start.

“Magnus,” he heard the uncertainty in Alec’s voice. “Do you think that maybe we’re too…”

“Different?” Magnus supplied. He knew the answer. He knew the _question_. He turned around slowly, bracing himself for the… breakup? Could it be considered a breakup if they’d only kissed once?

“We’re from totally different worlds,” he acquiesced, and that might have been the understatement of the century. He’d been with mundanes and fae and vampires and all manner of beings, but none had been farther from his world than Alexander Lightwood.

“Different centuries,” Alec added. Magnus suddenly realized that that was what really bothered Alec, the age difference. Not the fact that Magnus was a downworlder, a warlock, that he had demon blood coursing through his veins. Granted, it was quite the difference. There were mundanes that considered 20 years to be an insurmountable age gap. He wondered what they would think of an age difference of four centuries.

“I should go,” Alec turned to leave. Magnus made to say something but thought better of it. It was better this way. Better to stop before he let himself fall too deep. He turned towards his window, and idly thought of calling Catarina over for a drink or ten. Unlike Ragnor, who tended to make fun of Magnus’s hopeless infatuations, Catarina was (usually) sympathetic. Plus she made a killer hangover cure. Her shift was probably ending soon, and-

“Look,” Alec’s voice rang from the door, startling Magnus out of his rambling thoughts. “I don’t care how many people you’ve been with.” Magnus’s heart skipped a beat. He turned around, hoping against hope that he wasn’t imagining things.

He wasn’t. There was Alexander, resolutely standing in front of him, looking a bit angry and a lot stubborn. Magnus took a second to let the image sink in.

“I don’t care how many people you _haven’t_ been with,” he countered. Even though he knew both statements were not entirely true. The sentiment was there, and that was what mattered.

He could hear his heart beating wildly in his chest as Alec closed the gap between them like a man on a mission, a determined look on his face. Magnus felt Alec’s hand on his waist as the boy pulled him in, dipping his head to catch Magnus’s lips in a fluttery, breathless kiss. Magnus could feel his entire body tingling from the sweetness of it. The heat would come later, he knew. There was plenty of time for that. He knew that heat was easy to come by, whereas tenderness… Not so much.

Alec stepped back from him way too soon, in Magnus’s opinion. He could see that he was trying to steady himself, could feel the nervousness that still hadn’t dissipated radiating as waves from Alec’s body.

“I hear that... Relationships, they, um, take effort,” Alec’s voice was low and shaky, his eyes cast down and wandering nervously until they finally locked on Magnus’s eyes. Magnus felt shaky himself, and a sense of giddiness that he usually associated with alcohol washed over him. Later he would marvel at how the bumpy road that had been their first date had landed them exactly where they needed to be. But for now, all he could do was smile.

“I’m all for effort.”


End file.
